Tabby, some seeds are sold right after harvest after being refrigerated 2-3 weeks and others sell the previous years crop that they didn't get planted. We have no way of knowing when they are going to plant them so they may have to store them. Most people buying them now are going to plant them now. But if they buy in the fall they may store them until spring or they may be starting them indoors. I have bought in the fall/winter and stored them until the following Aug when I planted my newly harvested seeds. I don't know why I didn't plant them earlier (brain fart) but I was thinking I wanted them all planted at the same time for some reason
I have bought seeds from a well known seller in fall 2010, lots and lots of different crosses. As with Mona, these came with 25 seeds (some 20) with 10 or more extra seeds of same. I even had one cross that I bought twice, 25 on one and 20 on the other plus the bonus seeds. I planted them and I had whole crosses of 35 seeds not germinate. The one I had double of we're not planted together, there were several other crosses in between. One of the crosses had no germination at all and the other did great; don't know what the problem was. Whole crosses of 25-30 seeds rotted where others around them didn't. I have no clue as to why.
The buyer of mine that didn't germinate had 4 different crosses and one cross was actually an unknown with a known so it was 2-3 crosses of unknowns mixed together plus the other 3 crosses. This is why I have doubts about it. If one whole cross didn't germinate I could understand, but not 5-6 different crosses. They more than likely did something wrong.
